每个现代父母都知道与一个相当自然的过程所涉及的斗争和不断的冲突：喂养他们的孩子。母乳喂养还是瓶子？您什么时候应该开始固体食物？而且，当孩子们年龄较大时：您能和一个拒绝蔬菜（不足喂力的挑剔的孩子）做什么？
如果您不仅担心他们的健康，而且您不仅担心他们的健康，而且还会在社交上面临“极大的污名”，这可能会大大加剧。纽约时报佩里·克拉斯（Perri Klass），医学博士“父母会让孩子发胖吗？”，Klass博士和其他人讨论了善意的父母可以附上多少罪魁祸首：
There’s an underlying assumption here about what adults can control, and about how children can be controlled, if only their parents would take the trouble, or make and enforce healthy rules for the whole family, or read the nutritional information on the back of the cereal box.
显然，这列的启发是受到一位Kles在11月的反应的启发。“如何不与超重的孩子交谈。”由于互联网很棒，所以评论包括羞辱陈述“超重父母喂垃圾'食品……给他们的超重孩子”，以及责骂“唤醒父母……您的孩子不必一直都零食。您正在破坏他们的未来健康和自尊心。”
正如我们有时可能希望我们的孩子是听话的机器人一样，我们可能会在我们喂食他们的奶油菠菜而没有任何一边的奶油菠菜时松树，事实仍然是，这些小人类有自己的强烈见解，这是正确的。我之前提到过，当我的双胞胎是婴儿时，我喜欢制作食物，烤各种葫芦和用苹果和梨制成泥。直到自己的第一个生日蛋糕，他们甚至从未咬过糖。Since then, though, it’s been an uphill battle, where I can still find stashes of Halloween candy in the back of a dresser drawer in February, as they know they have to furtively hide this contraband from me, or else I’ll just toss it (well, not the chocolate).
拥有双胞胎给我一个内置的对照组，我可以向任何烦躁的父母保证，我们对自然的养育证明了很多。Obviously, we have organized our kids’ mealtimes the exact same way, but we have one extremely adventurous eater (my son) and one where I can list the things she’ll actually eat on two hands with some fingers left over (my daughter). Most of our dinners do not come from a box or a drive-through lane, but from scratch. We sit down at the table and eat together. There are no screens allowed. These factors all help our dining room avoid the “obesogenic” environment that the纽约描述。然而，我的女儿更喜欢只喝一杯普通米饭，而我们其余的人都吃了美味的panang咖喱，摇了摇头。我很高兴看到纽约支持我的业余研究：“没有人说生物学必须是命运，纯粹和简单的，但是很明显，与某些孩子一起易于实施的健康饮食策略在其他孩子方面也更加困难。”
到目前为止，我的孩子非常健康（敲木）。但是，我是否担心女儿对地面食物的鄙视最终会对她的健康产生不利影响？（今天早上我放在她的早餐盘上的两个草莓最终搬回了冰箱，未食用。）当然，我愿意。因此，像许多父母一样，我很快就可以单击Klass博士专栏。我对她的摘要有些安慰：
For all children, whatever their risk for obesity, good parental decisions about nutrition really matter: It’s important not to overfeed babies, to keep junk food and sugary drinks out of the house, to not let kids eat in front of the screen, and to encourage kids to “eat the rainbow” of fruits and vegetables. But those who rush to judgment should be aware that it is not at all simple to “say no” all the time to an extra-hungry child, or to “feed more vegetables” to the kid who refuses to eat anything green… Most parents—really—are doing our best, in the complicated food environment in which our children are growing up, with the daily struggles of family life.
因此，虽然不是一种选择，但我仍然会继续推动那些草莓去吃零食。